Regardless, if college football leaves the day, the NFL would be absurd to not develop a way to pounce on the wide-open Saturday windows: 1:00 p.m. ET, 4:30 p.m. ET, and 8:15 p.m. ET, the very same windows the NFL utilized when playing a trio of games on a Saturday in December 2019.
Andrew Marchand of the New York Post reports that “ESPN/ABC would attempt to land Saturday games.”
As 2 of the 5 significant college football dominoes have kicked the can to spring 2021 at the earliest, the NFL may quickly have an opportunity to slide some Sunday games to Saturday. If that happens, a pair of Disney-owned networks would be interested in televising the item.
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The NFL surely would require a complete and full disappearance of college football from Saturdays. The broadcast antitrust exemption forbids the NFL from televising games on Fridays and Saturdays from Labor Day weekend through early December. If any of the conferences will be playing this fall, it would be tough if not difficult for the NFL to finagle an exception to the exemption, enabling Saturday video games to be played, and to be telecasted.
Regardless, the NFL may have a golden opportunity to regain some lost green this season. Wherever and nevertheless the video games are served to consumers, if theres no college football on Saturdays it would be an upset if the NFL does not milk a cow that all of a sudden appears in the barn.
Whether the video games are offered to a network or to a streaming service or whether the league offers the video games directly to the consumer, with local games at all times offered by means of totally free, over-the-air television, moving games to Saturday would assist to recover the lost earnings from fans not participating in games.
Its uncertain the number of networks would desire to contribute to their existing plans, if the NFL were to create one or 2 or 3 windows on Saturday. Some networks might not want to compose the check in struggling monetary times. The NFL may not be willing to provide FOX and CBS the kind of rebates needed to strip away one or two or 3 Sunday games.
